Eva Perón (known in Spanish as Evita) poured out her personal feelings through a combination of her remarkable image — fueled by photography, fashion, and make-up — and forceful public policy. She was controversial because there was so little nuance in what she wanted to be or what she wished to do.
By most accounts, Evita was the most powerful woman in the world during her life. It is a shock, then, to have to look for her for such a long time in the Cementerio del norte in La Recoleta, Buenos Aires, hidden away as she is in a mausoleum identified by her errant father's family name — Duarte — instead of by the name for which she was so world-famous.
The crypt hides her in darkness, indeed thirty feet below the surface of the earth. Perhaps, I thought when I visited her there, she's just fatigued from all the travel she's been through since she died. Her travels are described by Tomás Eloy Martinez in his novel Santa Evita, which is available in English translation. Martinez chronicles the migration of Evita's embalmed body — sometimes in friendly hands, sometimes not — halfway across the world.
She was a radio and film actress with a minor talent, a gatherer of the hearts of the Argentine poor, and a very great, extremely flawed politician. To this day, Evita is viewed in Argentina either as a saint or a whore, as a soulful heroine of the people or an unprincipled fascist.
There is a tango, entitled “Maquillaje (Make-up).” It is one of the few I've ever seen that actually has an epigraph, from the sixteenth century Spanish poet Lupercio de Argensola: “Porque ese cielo azul que todos vemos, ni es cielo, ni es azul. ¡Lastima grande que no sea verdad tanta belleza!” (Because that blue sky we all see is neither sky, nor is it blue. What a great shame that such beauty is so untrue!)
Like so many tangos, this one is an accusation, by a man, of love gone bad. Betrayal and lies are at its heart, and the lies themselves reside most obviously in his lover's make-up. The poet says she buys lipstick, and some blush that trembles on her cheek, and dark eye shadow, tinted green - but it's all lies. Her virtue, her love and goodness, and even, finally, her youth - all hidden by her make-up.
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